Peering through the windswept snow on a dark February day, the rescue party finally came on the first sign of life  the flapping remains of a tent pitched on ski poles on an uppermost slope of Kholat Syakhl, Mountain of the Dead in the native language of northern Siberia.

But where were the nine young Russian students who should have been sheltering beneath the canvas?

Curiosity turned to mystery as human tracks were seen in the snow heading downhill away from the tent in single file for a third of a mile... barefoot human tracks.

In temperatures of minus 24! And mystery became horror when an inspection of the tent showed its front flaps still buttoned tightly together but huge knife slashes down the sides  through which the occupants apparently fled.

Inside was like the Mary Celeste, with everything intact  warm clothes, waterproof jackets, blankets and sweaters that would have been essential to survive in the Siberian weather; plus cameras, diaries and cooking utensils, all apparently abandoned in a moment of madness.

So began the story of what became known as the Dyatlov Pass Incident, one that has baffled the world for more than half a century since whatever horrific tragedy overtook the nine in February 1959.

They had been missing for almost a month after trekking out into the bleak wildness of the Ural mountains  seven men and two women, all of them fit, hardy and experienced hikers on what was supposed to be a short and invigorating break from their graduate studies.

Haunting photographs from the film in their cameras show the happy and relaxed faces of good friends on an exhilarating adventure, capturing their journey by train, road and on foot to this desolate area.

The value ( lightness and darkness ) of the figure on the far right is too light. It is obvious that she is wearing a dark coat and has dark hair but contrast this darkness with the hats of the two men. Also check the darkness around her neck compared to the darkness around the necks of the two men. The value is definitely “off”.

Looking at the WIki, it indicates footprints could be followed from the tent but after some distance, were covered with snow:

“A chain of eight or nine sets of footprints, left by several people who were wearing socks, a single shoe and barefoot, could be followed and led down toward the edge of nearby woods (on the opposite side of the pass, 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) north-east), but after 500 metres (1,600 ft) they were covered with snow.”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_Pass_incident
At the forest edge, under a large old cedar, the searchers found the remains of a fire, along with the first two bodies, those of Yuri Krivonischenko and Yuri Doroshenko, shoeless and dressed only in their underwear. The branches on the tree were broken up to five meters high, suggesting that a skier had climbed up to look for something, perhaps the camp. Between the cedar and the camp the searchers found three more corpses, Dyatlov, Zina Kolmogorova and Rustem Slobodin, who seemed to have died in poses suggesting that they were attempting to return to the tent.[2] They were found separately at distances of 300, 480 and 630 meters from the tree.

12-year-old Yury Kuntsevich, who would later become head of the Yekaterinburg-based Dyatlov Foundation (see below), attended five of the hikers’ funerals and recalls their skin had a “deep brown tan”.[2]
Some of the hikers’ clothing (2 pants and sweater) were found to be highly radioactive.

I’d buy that. Sound or snow hitting the tent panics the group and, blindly, trying to get out they slash the tent. Some are half clothed, others not. They flee, stumble or are taken down in a snow slide and suffer injuries on rocks or just being tumbled. Some die quickly. Some regroup and try to find shelter in the bitter cold night and die of hypothermia in fairly short order. One, the woman, lies dead out in the cold on the surface or near to it. Later, birds find her corpse and feed on the eyes and protruding tongue.

As an aside, I can assure anyone that has never slept at altitude or in sub-zero conditions that being in a mummy bag and crammed like sardines in a tent is a good ingredient for the panic that can ensue from clostrophobia, the absolute stygian blackness or the sounds that cannot be identified or that can be such as the roar of snow moving at speed or even the cracking of ice beneath you on a frozen lake (sounds like cables under tension being plucked).

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